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Thursday, March 22, 2012

Writing a novel, one page at a time

Writing a novel (or any other complex task) isn't as daunting a task as you may think, if you learn how to break it down into pieces.

It's like the old saying that says, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."

Writing a novel is no different. The simple act of writing a page a day as your goal is one a set back when I was in college. It's also worked well for me in the post-college years, when I had two or three jobs going on at once and three kids (the kids were not all at once, they gradually popped out into the world over the course eight cumulative years).

The key is to have a goal, even a small one, that you can accomplish everyday.

Let's take this one step further: let's say your novel will be 400 pages long. With the goal of one page a day, that novel should be done in a little over a year. But what would happen if you increased your output to two pages a day? You'd finish in 200 days.

Four pages a day?

A little over three months.

That's it. Well, for the first draft, of course.

But a first draft is better than no draft. Once your first draft is done, reward yourself. You are now an elite warrior in the field of writers.

After the week-long inebriation is over, set aside the first draft. For how long, you ask? Each writer is different. It could be a few weeks or a few months. It should be long enough for you to

About Me

I write novels and short stories in various genres, from thrillers and horror to fantasy and sci-fi. I have several completed novels and stories, many of which are available on Amazon, etc. Please see the sidebar for links. You may follow me in a variety of ways:
E-mail address is: marksrpeterson@gmail.com
Twitter me @MarkSRPeterson